Enrolled Bill Summary

            House Bill 1348 amends the Labor Code to authorize the Texas Workforce Commission to make grants available on a one-time basis to local workforce development boards to enable the boards to design and implement child-care demonstration projects. The projects must expand child-care services in underserved rural areas; create or expand existing pilot programs for recruiting and retaining child-care providers and for assisting certain low-income, at-risk parents who may benefit from career counseling and employment location services; or develop initiatives to foster school readiness. The bill requires a board, to be eligible for a grant, to conduct the demonstration project in a manner that allows other boards to replicate it in whole or in part and to use the grant to develop direct child-care programs that may be funded by the board or by other local sources at the conclusion of the project.